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The voice of The Sky Valley since 1899Thu, 30 Jul 2015 21:03:12 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.3Featured Non-profit: Matthew Househttp://www.monroemonitor.com/2012/12/18/featured-non-profit-matthew-house/
http://www.monroemonitor.com/2012/12/18/featured-non-profit-matthew-house/#commentsTue, 18 Dec 2012 20:32:17 +0000http://www.monroemonitor.com/?p=1256by Polly Keary, Editor Editors Note: With this story, we continue our annual Featured Non-profit series, in which each week through the holiday season we highlight the work of a local non-profit, including ways to help in this season of giving. We encourage support for these worthy charities. The two-story house in the [...]

Linda Paz, director of Matthew House, and board member Andrea Caldwell, stand in the living room of the home that offers hospitality to about 4,000 visitors of inmates at the Monroe Correctional Complex each year.Photo by Polly Keary, Editor

Editors Note: With this story, we continue our annual Featured Non-profit series, in which each week through the holiday season we highlight the work of a local non-profit, including ways to help in this season of giving. We encourage support for these worthy charities.

The two-story house in the shadow of the prison is a home like any other.

It just gets a few more visitors.

It gets about 4,000 of them a year, in fact.

It is Matthew House, and for more than 30 years it has been a hostel and hospitality center to thousands of the family members and loved ones of people incarcerated in the prison just up the hill from where it stands.

And it is headquarters for many other services that help hold families together while one of the family’s members is serving time.

On Fridays, when weekend visiting begins, the small house fills up quickly. People coming from out of the area come to check into one of the small guest rooms where they can stay overnight. Others arrive for hot coffee or to prepare children for visits with fathers.

Many just come to spend time in a place where they and their children will not be judged for their association with a prisoner, but will be treated nicely.

If they are hungry, they eat. If they are thirsty, there are bottles of water handy. If they find that what they are wearing doesn’t meet visit room regulations, there is a closet from which they can select another outfit to wear.

And often, there is food on hand that they can take home, for families in which a parent is incarcerated often face poverty.

Thursday, in the kitchen, Matthew House Director Linda Paz, a New York minister who ran a large women’s shelter in Everett before taking over the Monroe non-profit, sat next to a shoulder-high stack of potato boxes. Each year, a local potato farmer gifts her with thousands of pounds of potatoes, and she gives them away to prison families and others in need.

“I gave away 5,000 pounds of potatoes over Thanksgiving,” she said.

It is never easy to raise money to assist the families of prisoners, Paz said, but this year has been very busy, and she’s even lower on food than usual.

“I can’t keep up with the food,” she said. “I even had to go to the food bank and said we were out of food. Maltby sent me a little food and so did Monroe.”

The good-humored Paz mentioned a few other things it is hard to keep up with.

“You know how fast toilet paper goes?” she said. “We have 4,000 people come through here in a year. Imagine 4,000 people coming through your house.”

About 2,000 of those people stay overnight, too, she said.

And some of them stay longer than that.

“We had a lady, she was 82 or 84,” said Paz. “She lives on California’s Oregon border. She drove up by herself, because her son was having trouble with his kidneys. She stayed for two weeks.”

The elderly woman said that she wasn’t afraid to drive once she got on the freeway.

“You just go straight,” she said.

But there are many people who don’t have transportation to see their loved ones, so Matthew House volunteer drivers run two vans that shuttle people to visit prisons around the state. Each month, nearly 200 people use the vans to visit about 150 inmates.

“These families really put out a lot to come see their inmates,” said volunteer driver Don Dermenstien, who shares driving duties with his wife. “For one visit, they might be eight hours on a bus, and some of them have to use a walker.”

“How committed are they, to do that?” said Matthew House board member Andrea Caldwell.

She, too, noted that Matthew House is a hard charity for which to raise money, because of its association with prisoners, even though “we don’t involve the inmates,” she said.

Help from the community is what keeps Matthew House going, though, said Paz.

It doesn’t always take the form of money.

“People ask what we need, I say, ‘if you’re going to Costco, how about grabbing us a case of water? Or a case of toilet paper?’ Everyone laughs at that, but it’s constantly moving.”

Matthew House is especially busy through the holidays, when people travel all from all over the world to see inmates, and when Matthew House works to provide extra food and needs for families.

Then in January, things quiet a bit. But they never quiet all the way. With Washington’s largest prison just up the hill, it is guaranteed to be an important resource for families trying to stay together, which is shown to cut recidivism nearly in half. And its key mission remains to ease the suffering of the children who have an incarcerated parent.

“It’s amazing to think this little place has been here more than 30 years,” said Paz. “I can’t even think of all the lives it has touched.”

To support Matthew House, call (360) 794-8720 to learn how to volunteer, donate, or buy one of the 2013 calendars of Paz’s scenic photos of the region, which are a fundraiser for the non-profit. Also see www.matthewhousemonroe.org, or send donations to Matthew House, P.O. Box 201, Monroe, WA 98272.

]]>http://www.monroemonitor.com/2012/12/18/featured-non-profit-matthew-house/feed/1Featured Non-Profit: Monroe Public Schools Foundationhttp://www.monroemonitor.com/2012/11/20/featured-non-profit-monroe-public-schools-foundation/
http://www.monroemonitor.com/2012/11/20/featured-non-profit-monroe-public-schools-foundation/#commentsTue, 20 Nov 2012 21:17:33 +0000http://www.monroemonitor.com/?p=925By Polly Keary, Editor Editors Note: With this story, we continue our annual Featured Non-Profit series, in which each week through the holiday season we highlight the work of a local non-profit, including ways to help in this season of giving. We encourage support for these worthy charities. The girl was one of the best [...]

John Lombardi, principal of Monroe High School presents Hayley Hanford with the 2012 Dr. William Prenevost Leadership Scholarship at the annaul awards night last May. Through the Monroe Public Schools Foundation, more than $50,000 in scholarships are presented to graduating Monroe students each year.Photo courtesy of the Monroe Public Schools Foundation

Editors Note: With this story, we continue our annual Featured Non-Profit series, in which each week through the holiday season we highlight the work of a local non-profit, including ways to help in this season of giving. We encourage support for these worthy charities.

The girl was one of the best students in her class, but as graduation drew closer, she still hadn’t gotten a card from the Monroe Public Schools Foundation telling her to come to scholarships awards night.

But in the last few days, someone in the community contacted the foundation and asked to give a scholarship for some deserving students who had not yet gotten any other awards.

“I was just lucky enough to be there when the student stopped in to the community center at the school and asked if there was any news and Mrs. Johnson told her that they had just gotten news that she should come to the awards night,” said Sue Skillen, executive director of the foundation. “And she was so excited. She wanted to know if she should bring her grandma from Eastern Washington. To see that reaction, that’s really great.”

The Monroe Public Schools Foundations funds about $10,000 in scholarships each year for Monroe kids, and administrates about $40,000 in scholarships from other people. But that is only one of the many services the foundation provides to students, and the list grows each year.

The foundation was created in 2006 under the direction of former school district administrator Marie Lotzgesell and with the help of some other prominent community members.

“The foundation came to be because of an obvious need in our community for support for public education,” said school district spokesperson Rosemary O’Neil.

The first year, the foundation focused on creating and funding scholarships.

But soon after that, the mission grew. The foundation created grants to pay for extra training and education for staff members.

Also, the foundation set aside funds to help the families of students weather crises, such as house fires. School counselors know that if they learn of a family in crisis, they can alert the foundation to the situation.

“We have gift cards for food and clothing,” said Skillen. “If it’s a house fire we can get beds from thrift stores, that sort of thing. We have a relationship with St. Vincent de Paul, as well as Goodwill, and with laundromats. It’s constantly evolving.”

In order to help kids stay healthy, the foundation partners with people in the athletic community and sets aside some funds to help kids in low-income families pay activity fees for things like drama, sports and band, because kids who are able to do school activities about which they are passionate tend to be more engaged in education overall.

Recently, the foundation started putting together “curriculum bags” for all kids pre-registering for kindergarten, full of things they can start on over the summer to prepare them for school in the fall.

One project was initiated by a parent after the failure of the technology levy two years ago.

“The woman said, ‘Is there somewhere I can send my money? Because the kids still need this technology,'” said O’Neil. With the help of the parent, the foundation bought a rolling cart full of laptop computers that can transform any classroom into a computer lab. This year, the school is getting a second such cart, and the foundation is starting a STEM initiative, which emphasizes education in science, technology and math.

With a grant from the Greater Everett Community Foundation, this year the Monroe Public Schools Foundation will be able to offer low-income kids grants to take all-day instead of half-time kindergarten. Studies show that kids who get fulltime kindergarten have better educational outcomes in later years.

The foundation has fundraisers all year long, such as classic movie night at Galaxy Theater and an annual golf tournament, but the vast majority of funding comes from the school district employees through a payroll deduction program.

This year, the foundation will offer a similar donation opportunity to community members, too, through a program called “Gift 365 for Kids to Thrive,” in which donors can make a debit card donation of $5 or more per month.

“We’ll have an opportunity to provide a lot more enrichment,” said Skillen.

The benefit to students of the foundation has been immense, said district superintendent Ken Hoover.

“Our foundation is amazing,” said Hoover. “Their efforts help our community keep its commitment to provide each child an opportunity to be a strong citizen with an outstanding education, ready for college and/or a great career after graduation.”

The future is what it is all about, said Skillen.

“Our tagline is “Funding Futures,” said Skillen. “We’re not only helping their futures, we are helping our own. They are the next generation that will be in charge.”